Toward Ecosophy

It so happens that I have a very challenging month ahead of me. I must move myself and family by a strict and inflexible deadline, under such conditions that one might fairly say we must move mountains to complete the necessary tasks on time. Much hangs on this.

It has come to my attention that a solar and a lunar eclipse are fast approaching, one on the fourteenth of the month and the other on the twenty-eighth, if memory serves. Reading and experience alike have taught me to be leery of eclipses. The last thing I need at such a critical time is for discordant celestial energies to come bolluxing up my already difficult tasks. Can you suggest any measures I might take to protect myself from their influences?

I have experience with basic HOGD magic, using Hellenic deities and mythology.

Hi JMG, I asked before about the use of divination to augment a short-term investing strategy - predicting whether hour-by-hour movements in a financial market would continue or reverse. Someone mentioned that such a use of magic was treading close to the pitfall of trying to get something for nothing.

Do you have an opinion on this? I see it as similar to a farmer or sailor using divination to determine what kind of weather is on the way. From my perspective a market can be seen as a natural emergent system, like the tide going in and out. Determining the course of such forces of nature has been one of the most ancient uses of magic and divination, and my divining for this purpose must be complemented by my own skills and understanding to be productive. I have trouble seeing it as being comparable to someone who wishes for millions of dollars to fall from the sky.

Thanks again for these posts.

Hi,

Your Magic Monday FAQs list your five categories of books and explain which books are compatible. Do I have this right? "Compatible" means the ceremonies and rituals do not conflict. It is still okay to read from incompatible books for education and no harm is done?

Also, I am always disappointed not to see "The Druid Path" listed.

Moserait

Hi, JMG. I would like your view on a geomancy chart that I have recently cast. I find it a bit challenging because of the nature of the question. In brief, there is an anti-government social movement that is presently unfolding. My question is whether the movement will benefit for the people of my country.

The four mothers are:
M1: Populus
M2: Laetitia
M3: Conjunctio
M4: Acquisitio

The court that is generated by these figures are:
Right Witness: Puella
Left Witness: Rubeus
Judge: Via

My reading of the court is that this movement will create a transition from cooperation and harmony (Puella) to confrontation and conflict (Rubeus): in general, this does not look good for the people of my country.

Now, I am of the habit of interpreting both the court and the house chart. Given the nature of the question, I took the 1st house to represent the citizens of my country. The figure happens to be Populus. I see it as representing a unified mass of people (as an aside, in a scrying that I did years ago on Populus I saw a monument commemorating the townspeople overthrowing a local tyrant through their show of unity) and, so, I believe that this is a somewhat favourable figure for this question.

I also paid attention to a few other houses and to their figures and any interaction with each other and with the 1st house. I looked at the 9th house, as there is both a religious and legal/ethics aspect to this movement. The figure is the highly favourable figure of Laetitia, which I take to mean that they are making swift gains and feel empowered and/or that they are on the right side. Laetitia passes to the 2nd house and therefore perfects by conjunction with the 1st house.

As the movement is anti-government, I figured that it makes sense to look at the 10th house. Placed there is the strong figure Fortuna Major, which I take to mean that the government is not seriously threatened by the movement. Fortuna Major also perfects with the 1st house, but it is placed in the inauspicious 12th house: I take this to mean that the government may use traitors/spies to discredit the movement in the eyes of the public; given the nature of the figure, it has me concerned.

Now for the twist: Fortuna Major also appears in the 6th house, which is square Laetitia in the 9th house and therefore shows an opposing or blocking force to the hopes indicated in the 9th house. Now, the 6th is also the house of the working class – and this movement also has a strong ‘blue collar’ element to it. This is what throws me off, as I see the blue collar element to be the least likely group to be corrupted by the government -- though it may be possible for them to be ‘duped’ by government-allied (or funded) agents of disinformation, sowers of discord, or architects of a ‘trap’ (12th house stuff).

The cardines are fairly favourable: Populus (I), Fortuna Major (X), Albus (VII) and Acquisitio (IV), indicating that the public could gain from the situation. The Reconciler is Via.

So, there we have it: my take-home is that the movement will change the ‘tone’ of anti-government activities to being less peaceful (and may face harsh government opposition) and despite the moral and legal justification of the movement, the public as a whole will not be significantly affected by it – but, if they are affected, it will be to more fully unify them which could be beneficial.

Sorry it’s so long, but I figure that by giving a full interpretation, it will give you more points to agree or disagree with. This is a hard chart for me to be objective about and I cast it because intuitively I have been getting ‘mixed signals’ about the whole thing; hence I am reaching out to you. Thanks!

Ron M

Good morning, and thank you for hosting this forum as always. I'm working my way through the Ovate grade of the CGD and putting my kit together, so a few questions about gear and supplies this time. Might be a bit mundane compared to the more high-flying discussions here, but this is also a part of occult practice, right? :)

1) The book calls for a porcelain mortar for the spagyric work. I happen to have an unused stone mortar/pestle I was planning on using before I checked the book and again and noticed this detail. Should I get hold of one that's specifically porcelain, or will stone do?

2) The procedure also calls for 75% alcohol. Unfortunately, it turns out 60% is the highest alcohol content that can be legally sold or imported in my European country, and I don't have any realistic way to get hold of anything stronger. How much of a problem is this in terms of the CGD practice? I suppose I'll just have to make do with the 60%?

3) I've also got the Mysteries of Merlin book and might start those ceremonies with the winter solstice. Of course these call for a number of altar cloths of specific colors. Do you (or the commentariat) have any suggestions for good places to find these? Maybe specific small vendors who deserve some support? A matching set would be nice too, which is another plus with buying them all from the same place. I can import from a US seller if need be.

a) Do you have any advice for learning how to improve one's own karma in a systematic fashion? It's occurred to me as I try to dig myself out from another self-inflicted mess that this skill would be extremely useful to have; and while it's probably something which can't be fully mastered as a human being, but any capacity here is still going to be remarkably helpful.

b) I'm planning to start giving a decent portion of my income to causes I support. One concern I have is that there is a lot of fraud and theft happening in "charitable" organizations right now. I'm planning to do due diligence, but I doubt I'll be able to fully vet the charities, given there's only so much time in a day, and a lot of the people involved in such thefts try to hide it. Is there a standard process for people without relationships to any gods to reach out to a deity who rules the domain in question and ask for assistance in ensuring the money reaches the intend people and is not stolen before it reaches them?

hi JMG, is the practice of hermetism/alchemy compatible with the practices outlined in your book "Learning Ritual Magic"? I'm currently studying the first and was planning to start your book in the near future.

Thanks in advance!

Greetings, JMG -

I recently witnessed a most peculiar phenomenon, and I'm wondering if you could shed any light on it.

I just recently had my first encounter with grave dowsing. I watched an individual use copper dowsing rods - the kinds where you have long rods sitting perpendicular in handles, and you hold the handle upright and the rods, which are parallel to the ground, swing about as indicators - over old burial sites, and the result was most eerie. The rods absolutely seemed to respond to the presence of human remains beneath the ground, and even seemed to be able to indicate the sex of the buried bodies.

I found the demonstration especially compelling, because the person doing the dowsing showed this phenomenon to people as part of an unrelated event, so there was no incentive to produce paranormal phenomenon for an audience who had come looking (and paying) for it. This was a totally incidental "oh, and by the way, I know you're here to learn about how I repair gravestones - but before you go, check THIS out" demonstration. The dowser's experience indicated that this phenomenon worked on any kind of buried human remains, including cremains, as long as they weren't enclosed in a concrete vault with rebar, which seemed to block the energy.

Questions -

What might be going on here? What are the rods sensing, and how does it work?
Would this dowsing work for anyone, or does the person doing the dowsing have to have a special sensitivity to the phenomenon? (The guy in question restores old gravestones for a living, so clearly he has an affinity for burial grounds.)
And does the energy they sense have anything to do with why Catholic alters have saints' relics in them, and how does that work? And/or is it related to the use of relics in general?
Also, I tend to find old cemeteries quite peaceful, but don't like modern ones. Now I'm wondering if old burial grounds literally have a different energy due to the absence of the underground vaults that block whatever energy that was.

Thanks much, I'm quite curious about this whole phenomenon. If there are any further books or other resources you could recommend, I'd be most interested!

And if any commentators are familiar with this phenomenon, I'd love to hear about it....

A few weeks ago emmanuelg posted "Singing is about the only mystical/spiritual thing remaining in many branches of Protestant Christianity." I'm sad to have to agree with that. I too feel part of the mystical body of believers, everyone who has ever participated in worship by singing that hymn, when I sing older hymns especially. Sadly, those hymns are disappearing from Christian worship, and many that remain are frequently modernized to the point where I feel that they lose their power.
Why might that be? Don't most Christians feel the same way I do when singing those? Are their consciences damaged by their participation in the depradations of popular society, to the point where they don't feel worthy? Or are no longer spiritually sensitive? God, please grant me the grace that my heart does not grow hard.
I played the YouTube music links that emmanuelg posted right away. Nice stuff. After playing the last link, the link below, Mass for Two Choirs and Two Organs by Charles Marie Widor came up. It's music that I listen to when, as my kids say, I'm "in a mood". Well, from the previous links YouTube must have decided that I was "in a mood". Fair warning--Widor is a bit of a madman and this piece has the weight of a freighter going 90 miles/hour: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnXrIE4odhY
For those with more delicate sensibilities, Fernando Ortega is way less forceful and transcendently beautiful:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-ZAQwXZ7YQ
Voces 8 transcendently beautiful, not always explicitly Christian:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hKgUxqXoc9M

Hi JMG,

Recently I visited a garage sale of a neighbors a few doors down, I typically try to go to garage sales as they are an excellent opportunity to find books for extremely cheap. While looking through their books I was incredibly surprised to find, on top of a large stack of Playboys, the Satanic Bible by Anton Lavey and accompanying resources. Since they are selling them have probably never bothered to follow things more seriously so who knows.

Clearly this is a popular book from searching online which appears to center around individualism, materialism, rationality, etc., with additional rituals. At least from what I could tell at a cursory flip through and some background reading.

My questions is, would you do anything differently knowing your neighbor potentially follows or followed this particularly version of Satanism? My sense is no, but I can't help but thinking of it as I pass the house daily and gradually work on my own practices, so thought it best to ask.

Thank you for your insights!

Do you have a recommended book to read that talks more about the symbolism of the two pillars in depth?

Hi JMG,

I was looking for a picture of the Norse god Heimdall the other day, and came across this one:
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-BHi2OQwhTd8/V4eRInVgp2I/AAAAAAAAVy4/X-c6nszs1BsD7Z9xCTkZmY0V-KD_FwdpACLcB/s1600/heimdall.jpg

Now this looks a lot more like a certain Greek god than other pictures of Heimdall I've seen, but is from the Icelandic Eddas.

In the same way that Hermes was often conflated with other gods such as Anubis (eg. Hermanubis), do you know if Hermes and Heimdall were ever conflated?(Hermdall? Heimes?)

Thanks.

I’ve had a constant foreboding sense of something awful coming for the USA for several years now, but it has ebbed and flowed in intensity during that time. Right now it’s peaking again. I feel like an animal who knows something dangerous is lurking out of sight. Hackles raised. On alert.

What it is, specifically, I can’t fully see. It’s blurry. I try but the best I can bring into focus is the phrase “after 2025, everything is different.” And a sense of deep suffering by many people. Persecutions, maybe. I’m not sure.

Another phrase that came to me very suddenly and intensely (while in Stop n Shop here in Rhode Island, of all places) is “your country has lost the mandate of heaven.” It felt very intense, very stark.

Anyone else tapped into this?

JMG, what do you think?

I’m coping through prayer.

Thank you for reading.